We headed to Market Street and I parked easily opposite a large lake. I'd looked at the places to go before we left the villa and a cafe called Sweet Escape sounded good for coffee. It was pleasantly busy and Sophie and I ordered at the counter while the boys found a table. I enjoyed a very good latte while Sophie had iced tea, Keith a normal coffee and Mike chose a chocolate milkshake. Sophie picked out a gooey pastry to eat, Keith had a cookie while I had a delicious blueberry muffin. As Mike had eaten his leftover pizza for breakfast, he passed on anything to eat!
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| Sophie grappling with her gooey cake! |
I thought how lovely it would be to live in the town and stroll down to the cafe for coffee every morning! Even the local fire brigade turned up to get a brew!
After we'd eaten we wandered around the town and Sophie and I went into a shop called Soft as a Grape where they had tee-shirts and other lovely things to buy. Sophie bought two tee-shirts and one had "Estd 1996" on the front...well, she just had to, didn't she? I bought a mug to drink my morning coffee out of and the sales assistant was really lovely and chatty.
We met the boys who had strolled down to the lake and I took loads of photos of the town on my phone. I've also taken quite a few with my camera but I've had difficulty connecting it to Sophie's laptop so I'll have to publish them when we return home.
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| Market Street |
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| Note the beautiful Florida sky! |
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| Sophie and I agreed we'd love to stay at this hotel! |
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| Market Street |
By now it was quite hot so we decided to reluctantly leave Celebration and head off to do some shopping. We did a couple of circuits of some residential areas before finally spotting signs for the I4 and getting back onto the West Osceola Parkway. Keith had found an outlet shopping centre not far away but somehow we missed the turn for Vineland Road so we ended up back at The Loop where we visited JC Penney's.
This turned out to be a good idea as Mike bought two pairs of shoes that he'd wanted for ages, Keith bought two pairs of Levis and Sophie bought two more tee-shirts and a pair of Levis jeans. It seems strange to see my family so keen on the brand when I worked for them 25 years ago!
The US doesn't seem to have caught onto the idea of charging for shopping bags yet so we had loads which, later on, turned out to be a good thing! We put all of our purchases in the boot of the car and headed off to Universal. I needed to get some petrol and as we neared Universal I was worrying we would run out. Luckily, just as I had about 40 miles left in the tank we spotted a garage and thankfully pulled in. As Keith wanted to pay in cash we had to go into the shop and pre-pay. We thought about $40 would do but I didn't think it would fill the tank. Keith started to fill up with fuel but we soon realised we had far over-estimated the payment. We just about got $30 in (and that was a struggle!) so we had to go back into the shop and get $10 back! I told the cashier that it would have taken about $70 back in the UK to fill the tank!
We were also accosted by a man as we were filling up who wanted "$3 of fuel to get home." He looked perfectly turned out and was wearing brand new Levis shorts so we don't quite know how he came to be in that situation, but Keith gave him some money and we saw him at the next pump to us. We've also seen a couple of men brandishing home-made signs asking for money or food at busy intersections. Again, I don't know their situation, but surely in Orlando, there are jobs to be had?
At Universal we didn't bother with the Prime parking and we were directed up onto the roof again. On the way down to the park we saw vast areas of the lower (covered) levels of the multi-storey empty...is this a way of making people pay for Prime parking next time?
We headed for Islands of Adventure today and already it was very hot. Sophie was peckish as she'd abandoned half her gooey cake so we went into one of the cafes in the Cat in the Hat area and queued up for some lunch. It took ages for some unknown reason and we were astonished at how expensive the food was. We ordered a slice of pizza, two portions of French fries, two Sprites and a bottle of water and it came to $25. However, it was beautifully cool in there!
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| The Crazy Golf at the entrance to Universal. |
After we'd eaten I bought an "Eye" key ring, the same as my necklace, from one of the stands and then we went into the Poseidon's Fury attraction. We did this ages ago and it's quite cheesy and we all (mostly) enjoyed it again today. It was lovely to be inside and really cool!
After Poseidon's Fury we trekked over to Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges and queued for 55 minutes.
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| A glowing Sophie waiting in the queue! |
Overhead the clouds had massed into one angry lump and I could tell we were in for some rain. We shared our barge with a great group of people and we all got thoroughly soaked! And I mean wringing out water soaked! However, it was great fun and it's still one of our favourite rides.
The plan was to exit Islands of Adventure and go over to Universal to ride Escape From Gringotts, but Keith was feeling very weary and the shoes he was wearing were giving him some grief. We agreed to leave him sitting somewhere while we did the ride. It began to rain and by the time we'd reached the other park it was coming down hard. It didn't matter to us as we were soaked anyway!
A lot of people were streaming out of the park and we thought this was a good sign, but when we eventually go to Diagon Alley, the wait time for the ride was 105 minutes! None of us were prepared to wait that long so we decided to call it a day and return to the car.
The bags from JC Penney's were used to protect the car seats from our wet bums and we drove back to the villa on the very busy I4.
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| Our lovely villa, a haven of peace and quiet! |
As it was still so warm Mike, Keith and I had a dip in the pool and it was like taking a very large bath!
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